[exclusiv]

The American dream isn't about becoming C-level or running the country.

College is oversold but the American Dream is alive if you go to a cheap school and buy a house in a smaller city or burbs. There are plenty of great cities and emerging ones with jobs and reasonable cost of living.

However, if you choose to buy crap you don't need and succomb to debt, that's not America's fault. That's yours.

But yes it's dead in LA, NYC and SF. You have to be a top performer there. But that's just supply and demand. Nobody owes you the American Dream in those cities. You aren't entitled to it.

[vkou]

> There are plenty of great cities and emerging ones with jobs and reasonable cost of living.

Which cities? How long will it be until they too turn into LA, NYC, and SF (While being surrounded by oceans of hopelessness and poverty)?

[gozur88]

Is there a place you can live that doesn't need plumbers or electricians?

[vkou]

Never lived in a place that didn't need doctors or CEOs, either. "Become a tradesperson" is useful advice for an individual, and completely useless as a solution to the economic problems of non-coastal towns.

[exclusiv]

I'd urge you to explore some other great cities like Nashville, Minneapolis, Chicago, Austin, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Denver and all the suburbs and even small towns surrounding them.

You're so hung up on the CEO thing which is irrelevant. We don't need more CEOs just like we don't need more lawyers and doctors. And you mention doctors - those are needed in any town of size anyway. My own grandfather was a doctor in a rather small town outside of Little Rock and he did very well for himself and sent 4 kids to college, one to med school. His son is doing the same thing now as a doctor in Memphis.

The American Dream is alive and well: it's just changed. It's no longer "graduate college, get a good job, buy a home and be set for retirement"

Too many people just aren't adapting and are frustrated because they are sinking themselves with poor decisions like crippling debt.

I know people w 200k school debt that graduated with degrees targeting jobs that tap out at around 80k that are way more competitive than any tech or marketing occupation. Makes no sense.

My uncle makes 100+k selling tools out of a town of 6k people. My father in law makes 150k+ in HVAC out of a suburb of about 50k people. They both own their homes outright. One didn't go to college.

People don't want to learn general crafts like sales and they don't want to learn crafts that get their hands dirty. Their parents keep pushing them into college which provides less and less value and tons of debt.

The American Dream doesn't go away just because less people are realizing it. It goes away because people are being stubborn and we have a nation of financially ignorant and wreckless citizens.

[vkou]

I urge you to look past the suburbs that ring metro areas, and a bit further out.

I've just driven out to Whidbey Island this past weekend - a 70 minute drive from Seattle. Beautiful place. Economically, it's also dying, and not because the people who live there are lazy bastards. If it didn't have a US Navy base, it would be dead. As a young person, you'd be insane to stay there.

In order to feed your uncle and father-in-law, small towns must have something to export.

It could be lumber. It could be coal. It could be applications for social security. It could be people, who work in the city, and live in their community, 40 miles away. But it has to be something.

Small towns that have an export - one big enough to feed all the doctors, cops, plumbers, politicians, realtors, teachers, babysitters, bricklayers, HVAC installers, and other people who bring no money into their economy can do reasonably well for themselves.

Those that don't are in a death spiral, and it won't matter if you replaced every person in them with a skilled contractor overnight.

[exclusiv]

I see what you're saying and a lot of small towns that once thrived are dying but your argument doesn't prove the dream is dead because:

1) the American Dream has included a college education as a general requirement for quite some time now. People that live in small towns, esp. mid-sized ones that rely on Naval bases or other similar economic drivers as the example you provided generally aren't part of this group

2) it ignores that the Dream is alive and well elsewhere

Nobody should expect to get a college education and go live in any given town and be set for life. That's not practical. Economies change, but the opportunities are still out there.

If you believe people should be entitled to make a living wherever they grow up (or choose) forever, then yes the American Dream doesn't exist because your expectations are out of line with capitalism.

That's not fair; it's alive if you aren't stubborn with occupational choices and where you live. It sucks to move but people need to get over that fear.